Fires of the North
by Kazzthescribe
Summary: 800 years before the events of Game of Thrones, the Seven Kingdoms were truely seven kingdoms. Kingdoms that were constantly in conflict, without and within. War rages in the Riverlands between the King of the Islands and the King of the Storm. Civil war looms in the North. Above it all, an ancient threat rises beyond the wall. An original story from the long history of Westeros.
1. Hadrian

Hadrian

Blazewater Bay exploded into conflict once again as it did every night for the young scion of Hearthfire. The deck of Northfire shook violently under the feet of Hadrian Blaze, as it did so many years ago. An Ironborn longship had smashed into the side of his war galley, cutting off his ship's oars. Stef the Barber, his father's Master-at-arms, had been standing next to him when a splinter from the deck, the size of a cat, slammed right into his visor. He screamed. There was a spray of bright red blood. And with that, Hadrian became a captain at 16 years old. Just in time for the first raiders came screaming on to his deck.

The fury of battle, with dozens of northmen and ironborn ships clashing off the northern coast, was lost on Hadrian. That morning shrank to the few yards around him where the first wave of raiders met with the men of House Blaze. His shield raised in time to catch a thrown axe mid flight, though he never could remember making the decision to interpose the heavy piece of ironwood. The assailant closed, drawing another axe from his belt. He was a large, bald man, easily twice the size and age of the lordling. He wore full mail and carried a battle axe, in addition to his off hand throwing axe. But the mail was rusty and the ax was chipped and worn and the fire of the blaze burned in Hadrians belly. The battle lust his brothers would warn him about was upon him.

"Hearthfire!" Hadrian screamed, his voice cracking. He slammed his shield into the raider's face. The raider pushed Hadrian back with his smaller axe, while bringing the larger one down in an overhead slash. Hadrian slipped right, letting the axe smash to the deck. He jabbed the raider in the stomach with the edge of his shield, then cut hard into the man's leg. His longsword found the joint behind the knee, slashing through the cord and leather and flesh, turning his sword red for the first time. Hadrian heard the man curse as he stumbled and toppled over the railing on the galley. His heavy armor pulled him below the waves.

'I did him a favor,' Hadrian thought. 'I sent him to the den of his soggy God.'

His idle musing was nearly the end of him, as another throwing axe sailed over Hadrian's shoulder end over end. He stumbled back as another raider vaulted on to the deck of the ship. This one was his age, or near enough. His eyes lacked the rage of the other Ironborn streaming aboard, and an old wound left his left cheek open, exposing rotten and broken brown teeth. The boy stabbed at Hadrian with a boarding pike. Hadrian deflected the pike up with his shield, then severed his hand at the wrist. The boy screamed and crumpled to the deck, writhing over his bleeding stump. Hadrian would have finished him there, had another raider not stepped over the boy and took up the fight.

He cut left and right. Blocked high and low. His men died around him and raiders continued to push on to the war galley. Hadrian caught a raider with a bash of his shield, then buried his longsword into her breast. Her breast. The shock of bloodied and beaten women before him, her mouth open soundless pain and terror, startled Hadrian more than he could have imagined. She fell away, taking his sword with her. He had to beat a quick retreat as two more took her place. He was able to pull a sword from one of his dead brothers and continue the defense.

By the time the raiders had established a foothold on Northfire, the battle was all but lost for them. Hadrian rallied his bloodied men. The Ironborn held on to the ground they had gained, only to push back and claim more of his ship. He rallied them again. The Ironborn would counter attack fiercely. He rallied them a third time, but there were 20 of his men out of the 100 or so left. They were true men, each and every one. They were ready to lay down their lives for House Blaze and the King in the North. Hadrian wasn't as ready to die, not just yet. If this was his time, he resolved to take as many of those iron bastards down with him as he could. That's what his father would do, he told himself.

Stark's Favor, his father's vessel, fought free from the Ironborn press with her sisters, Duty and Shieldsister, and were heading north. His father was falling back. The realization should have shocked him more than it did. Even then, as now, he couldn't imagine his father was falling back to the coast, leaving his youngest to the howling raiders. Hadrian was trapped where the Ironborn arrow head had pierced into the center of the coastal fleet and enveloped it. 'They were heading back to shore,' Hadrian thought, wariness and wounds leaving him with little comprehension of his father's actions.

In this dream, the one of the battle so long ago, his father rallied the northmen and swung back around. His renewed charge sent off the Ironborn raiders back to their rocks and salt cliffs. Hadrian held the final aft deck with his remaining 5 men. The bodies of the raiders had piled high around them. Hadrian was down to his knife and a mace, his leg bleeding heavily from an unlucky wound from an unluckier attacker, returning the injury with a crushed skull.

Hadrian was never smashed across the jaw. He was never captured with his few remaining men. He was never sold into slavery a world away from the shores of Blazewater Bay. In the dream, his father and brothers leapt aboard and cut down the fleeing raiders. His father reached down a hand to his youngest boy.

"I'm proud of you, boy. Hearthfire will be forever in your debt. You held the center, when all hope was lost." Hadrian pulled himself up with his father's help and then the two embraced briefly. He looked to his father. He was immaculate. No battle or strife had touched him. As Hadrian looked on, a small finger of blood extended from his father's grey and receding hairline, sliding down his face and dripping off his chin. Jeor Blaze seemed not to mind it at all. It became a waterfall of blood when the skin began peeling away from his skull, revealing muscle and bone underneath.

"You valor will not be forgotten." Jeor Blaze boomed, unperturbed by his sloughing flesh, his bare skull smiling.

Hadrian broke away. A shadow fell upon them. The wind whistled and whipped, churned by massive leather wings. Hadrian could only watch, a spectator to someone else's story. A ball of red and green fire poured over Northfire. His father and brothers, his remaining men and his ship, the very deck under his feet, exploded. He flew high in the are, the screams of the airborne nightmares filling his ears. Filling his head. He fell, burning. The ocean rose to meet him with the feeling cold, cold water to splash his face.

* * *

"If I have to tell you to get up again, it's not water i'm using!" The cold, smelly water soaked Hadrian to the bone, leaving his roughspun tunic and trousers drenched. "I'll drown you in a bucket of piss the next time I drag you out of bed." Hadrian blinked the cool water from his eyes and pulled himself to his feet, immediately apologizing to the Valyrian.

Alo the Whip was of a height with him, but Hadrian had long learned to not make it obvious to the slave driver and slouched low before him. Alo was a Valyrian from head to toe. He had their light skin and hair, with a pair of eyes as violet as a pansies. He wore a light green vest that left his massive, scarred arms bear. His namesake hung at his belt, still rolled. The Whip rarely used the weapon. He often didn't need too. The smoky silver glean at its tip was fear itself to the slaves around base camp, and Alo could cut the wings off a fly with the vicious cord if had the mind. The most important lesson each slave learned were the personalities or lack thereof borne in the Valyrian masters. Which ones would give you an extra spoon of soup or heel of bread. Which ones would let you take an extra water break or which ones would beat you for asking. Alo was not one of the ones they asked for a little extra of anything.

With a push, Hadrian was marched out of the slave barracks. "You are to join the others on the north ridge today. You are going to eat any stone left in the path of the road at nightfall." Alo commanded, giving Hadrian a sharp shove which each other step. Hadrian could understand the Valyrian speech of the fair overlords well enough, but it was still awkward on his own tongue, even now. He had yet to meet any of them who had bothered to learned the barbaric tongue of Westeros, although Stig and Hizdar knew it well enough. They were only slaves, though.

"Yes, sir." He replied quietly in the dragon tongue. They were the first words he had learned when the Ironborn had sold him at the Port of Oros in the heart of Valyria, all those years ago, along with 'I'm sorry.' and 'Thank you, kind Master'. The slave life had few enough distractions, so mastering High Valyrian was a task his mind could work while his body was used up. Hadrian had already lost a toe and a finger to mishaps in his work, so gaining a language or two was the next best thing to replacing them.

The Valyrians had maintained their might across Essos through the use of sorcery and slave labor and dragons. He had seen the latter often enough. Lordlings would come swooping in unannounced on the backs of their overly large lizards, inspecting the progress of work and the condition of the slaves to report on it back at the freehold. Soon enough they would be back on the wing and gone from sight. But while those monsters sat the ground near Hadrian and the other slaves...It was beyond fear. It was loathing and dread and death and fire and blood. It had happened more times than Hadrian could recall, but it was not something he could get used to. The smallest of them could have burned Hearthfire to the ground with a single breath and swallowed their aurochs and fishing boats whole. Dragons were not above roasting a slave and eating it right there in front of its master and the slaves driver if they strayed too close or looked too appetizing. The rider would give the driver a bronze penny for the lost property, a mere formality, then go back to their work.

'There's no question why they are the masters and we are the slaves,' He mused darkly, eyeing the high cliffs outside of their camps.

The north ridge was the final span of road to be laid between the town of Myr and the greater Essos roadways. Two years of baking suns and broken fingers had culminated to these last few weeks. The slow river of human property flowed up the steep hill from base camp. Lyseni and Summer Islanders. Copper-skinned Dothraki and Ghiscari. There was one other Westerosi. An Andal by his look and well into his forties. His tongue had been cut out for reasons unknown to Hadrian, so the conversation was poor. When work brought them nearby, Hadrian would tell the Andal stories of his home and family. That always seemed to cheer up the grey beard. Hadrian's own crew was long dead, captured, or had been sold elsewhere.

'Thomas only died a year ago. Or near enough.' Hadrian thought as he crested the ridge. The stone carts had already been lined up to be filled with the loose stones that littered the intended path. The land was dry as bone and the sun baked the thin sandy soil. The Essos roadway lay just down the other side of the north ridge. When they were connected, he and the others would be carted off to the next project. That was the pattern for the past 8 years.

He hadn't seen his Andal friend this morning and he wasn't among those already set about gathering stone. Stig, a summer islander merchant who had been 'picked up' on their way to Valyria after the battle was hefting rock after rock into a near by cart each the size of a dog. The near decade of work turned the soft aristocrate into a rock hard golem.

There were also two riders at the ridge peak. One was Viseries, the Dragonlord who oversaw this road project. He rode a magnificent white destrier that matched his long silky hair. Hadrian never saw him this far from his silken command pavillion. But if Hadrian could make time with the women and comforts he had seen carried in there, he wouldn't have left very often either.

The man next to him was a new face. He looked like he could have been of Westeros, but he had made that mistake before. He wore a long, heavy, red leather cloak. His hands and feet were covered in more red leather armor. A long spear was strapped to his saddle with a small bit of red cloth tied to the end just under the red metal point around the red wood shaft. He wore a long beard that was as red as blood. Under the sweltering summer sun, the man did not sweat or display any uncomfort with being bundled up warmly as he was.

Hadrian set to clearing stones while he tried to listen to him. The clashing and smashing of the work around him made the task impossible. After an hour or so, the red man looked away from the Valyrian to the slaves. His eyes settled on Hadrian and didn't waver. Hadrian returned the stare, the man's red eyes burrowing into his own. A quiet discomfort washed over the slave. He felt the man looking him over. His rags. His browned, scarred flesh. His heart. His soul. His fears. He hadn't felt this exposed, even when on the auction block.

"Slave. Westerosi. Come here at once." The Valyrian barked. Hadrian dropped his rocks into the cart and approached. He saluted the Overseer, but his eyes couldn't leave the stranger. Against the man's chest hung an amulet with the largest ruby Hadrian had ever seen. It was in the shape of a heart, with gold flames licking around the edges.

"How many I serve the Masters?" Hadrian asked in Valyrian.

"How old are you, slave?" The red man spoke the common speech of the Seven Kingdoms. Hadrian couldn't say where his accent was from, but it wasn't the North.

"Four and Twenty, ser."

"I'm no knight, praise be to God. What's your name?"

"Hadrian. Formerly of House Blaze."

The red man looked to the Valyrian. "What is he going to cost me?" This seemed to surprise the overseer. He considered Hadrian for a moment.

"A good pair of hands and a strong back like his? I will want at least a dragon." Viseries words were the closest thing Hadrian had heard to a compliment since he was enslaved. But it was a ruse. No slave was worth that much. Hadrian looked over his fellows still hefting the stones.

"Red man. May I say something?" Hadrian quickly spoke in the common tongue. Viseries looked surprised. As if a chair had just spoken while he was sitting on it. His eyes grew narrow and his hand reached for the scourge at his belt. The red man raised a hand quickly, giving Viseries pause.

"Speak."

Hadrian had to think carefully. He didn't know this man well and if he said the wrong thing, he could be left behind. He couldn't imagine a scenario where Viseries didn't have a driver beat him bloody for offering his help to the foreigner over his master.

"No slave here is worth a whole bit of gold. I don't know what you want with me, but there are others I know. Others from Westeros. Four slaves is surely worth a Gold Dragon."

An expression chiseled out of rock laid across the red man's face. His red eyes burned into Hadrian, considering him. Hadrian hadn't stood this tall since the battle.


	2. Luther

Luther

Luther and his hunting party awoke to find the entire camp was covered in a layer of early autumn snow. The camp reminded him of a field of barrows, the stone graves of the First Men. The sullen, lean man kicked away the powder that landed around his tent flap finding the still green grass underneath. Sedgwick and Edd and the other twenty or so began to pull up stakes for today's ranging.

The early morning glowed, even as the sun had not crested distant hills and trees to the east. It was almost bright, the way all winter mornings were brighter than otherwise. The heavy, wet snow clung to the branches sentinels and pines as easily as it did to the flat ground. Luther took a long, deep breath and let it out as slowly, watching his breath mist in the cold air. He pulled his fur lined cloak tight around him.

"Gods be good Luther, we should make for Hearthfire. You're father is going to be as cross with you as he will be with me." Sedgewick was climbing out of the neighbouring tent. A hard look from Jeor Blaze's second son silenced his diminutive friend. Sedgwick's feature had more in common with a pine mouse than any man. Scruffy sparse brown hair clung to his cheeks as it did on his head and Luther always thought a man could be speared through with the point of his nose it was so long and pointed. It always amused him how pathetic the man looked, considering how dangerous he truly was.

"Father gave me leave to hunt as I pleased."

"For a week, my lord. And that was two weeks ago. This snow will only slow us in returning."

His men did look weary. They had brought down two boar and a score of deer over the fortnight. It was meager take for the time they had spent. Most of the game had already gone to ground ahead for the winter to come. The Kings of Winterfell were always right in the end.

Luther paced away, creating the map of the North in his mind. They were not so far from Ryston. Shari Snow had said she would love to see him again. Luther thought back to the last time he accompanied his Father to visit Ryston and House Ryswell where they stood between the stoney shore and the Rills. Their Lord, Karl Ryswell, had a comely bastard girl who had made more than a few passing ribald jests in Luther's direction. He still remembered how her hand felt when she grabbed the front of his britches right before they left.

'I could sneak in under cover of dark and snow and steal her away. We could be halfway to Dorne before anybody thought to look for her,' Luther thought, feeling a stirring. She had coal black hair like his that fell in a girlish bob. He could get used to her keeping his bed warm from the deep chill of winter. 'Father would love that. A Ryswell bastard for a good daughter.' That was eight or so years ago, when their father was rallying the western houses against iron raiders.

The thought darkened his mood. Luther would do a great many things if he weren't a Blaze of Hearthfire. If he wasn't so meek before the Lord, he could have sailed across the world and back with Shari. That's all his flights of fancy were, If's and could's.

"My Lord," Sedgwick spoke up, noticing his lord's quickened breath. "We go where you follow. Just say the word and will bring down another herd of deer. An autumn feast will be just what Hearthfire needs." Luther returned to Westeros and looked down at Sedgwick. His sworn shield looked quite a bit larger than he was under those thick layers of fur. The bear who made his friend's heavy cloak rested it's head on the man's shoulder, snarling silently at all in front of her.

"We will return to Hearthfire. But the hunt is not over. We can be at the Barrow River by nightfall and follow the river south to the Blazewater. Maybe we catch a bear before its winter sleep." Sedgwick slapped Luther lightly on the back then turned to deliver his orders to the score in their company.

Luther sighed audibly and set about packing his tent. These hunting excursions were the last thing that brightened the somber lordling as long as he could remember. He would live on the game trails if he could. He was as quiet as a shadow and his arrow always found its mark, but there were woods and forests and beasts that he would never see, never hunt. House Blaze needed all of its sons in defense of the North. The world would have to wait. Wait until he was an old grey man unable to hold a sword in defense of his family's shores.

Edd, his young squire, came around to carry away his things.

"What will it be today, m'lord?" The boy of two and ten was as cheery as ever. Luther always thought his curly hair and rosy cheeks made him look like a child's doll. "A bear? A shadowcat? Shall we head to the wall and hunt giants and snarks and ice spiders?"

Luther tussled the boys hair without a word and set about walking towards the cook fires. Pocket and Davos were at their usual morning exercise, sparing with blunted swords. Fat Donal and Skinny Donal were hurling snowballs at each other just beyond the tent ring. A few of the hunting dogs were jumping through snow drifts, chasing one another. Pem and Brook were at their usual cook stations, arguing over seasoning and political theory.

"If the Starks are going to need hostages from the great houses if they want to pretend to control the north. Call 'em wards if you must, but a heavy hand is all that keeps the lords in line." Brook was saying while carefully dropping chopped onions into a stew. He was an oldest man in the party, with a long beard carefully braided.

"Your love of the Red Lord's justice is going to get your tongue cut out. Old King Harlon won't like that a cook is giving him advice," Pem responded as he mothered the simmering eggs and mushrooms in his pan. Pem of an age with Luther, though the lordling didn't know the lad well, he had come highly recommended by Brook.

"King Harlon should send for me at once to be his counsel and steward, as well as his personal chef. I can't think of anything more efficient than a meeting with talk of war, crops, and then what we're having for supper without summoning anyone!" Brook pour a bowl of the brown vegetable and rabbit stew and handed it to Luther.

"You two sound like a couple of maesters. Is this about the Hornwood dispute?" Luther asked, taking a seat. The Boltons, Karstarks, Hornwoods, and Lockes had all been demanding leave from King Harlon Stark to construct an armada for the North. House Manderly controlled what little they had, some 30 ships, which wasn't enough to stem the tide of pirates and raiders along the north eastern coastlines, or so the petitioning houses claimed. No great fleet had been readied since Brandon the Burner had put his father's ships to the torch and the eastern lords demanded it was time to right that wrong.

"My mum, rest her soul, told me that you couldn't trust a Bolton, but you could learn from them. They never had no uprisings in their lands. They have quiet, obedient smallfolk and scared, respectful neighbors. They must be doing something right!"

"I would find a skinless man and ask him what the Boltons are doing right," Luther shot back. "A people in fear aren't like to be happy."

* * *

Luther's party turned up another boar on their way to the Barrow River. The robust male made the trip worth their time, almost. He had backed himself into a snow glade of trees. Sedgwick was given the spear for the final blow as Luther and Jon Miller had the last two. The two were almost of a size, the beast and the man. The boar squared with it's attacker and charged, screaming. Sedgewick set his stance and spear, holding until the last moment. No man doubted the outcome and soon they were carrying the beast back to the horses trussed up and ready for cleaning.

Soon, they were at the rush of water that flowed south from Torrhen's Lake to Blazewater Bay and the Saltspear. The Barrow River was a wide, strong river, though early autumn cold had begun to slow her course. It was too late in the day to find bears at their fishing, so Luther ordered the camp set back into the wood a ways so they wouldn't spook any who would come around in the morning. Camp was up. Fires were built. Dinner was served. They had chosen a spot near a thick weirwood tree. It's face was smooth and almost young. He joined them men in a prayer before it.

Later, Luther sat against a tree, pulling long lungs of smoke off his cob pipe. The dried sour leaf calmed his nerves with all that frayed them. His escape into the woods was a light balm on a festering wound. His time in Hearthfire was agony as often as not. Warfare, on land and sea, held no interest. Neither did household management or treating with neighbours or tourneys. He had never felt as comfortable in a feather bed in a tower as he did in a bedroll in a tent. Slaying a man with his bow felt queer next to bringing down an elk or a bear.

A sound. A sound caught Luther's wandering attention and focused him like an old hunting cat. His eyes narrowed on the woods near him. All else faded away. It could have been a branch falling. A scratch against some bark.

He whistled like a bird, almost on reflex. He heard the din behind him shift in tenor and volume. The sounds of evening merriment, the chattering and the singing, melted into softly drawn knives and notched bows. Sedgwick and Edd were at his side. It wasn't the sound that made Luther uneasy, but the closeness of it. That it had gotten within yards of the treeline and the hunting party was blind to it. Even the four dogs they brought with them were only now growling, poised at the darkness. A silence clung to everything like the new snows. Luther's gaze darted around the camp. His men were armed and waiting. Every eye was on the treeline around them. The sentinals grew thick in these woods.

Someone screamed. Luther whirled to see Fat Donal getting dragged behind a shade of trees. He couldn't see who was doing the dragging, but the look of fear and anguish on the huge man's screaming face was plain.

The night exploded around him with the sounds of screaming men and monsters. Out of the tree tops and from behind the thick groves and shades came dozens of huge pale demons, eight-legged with huge, drooling mouths. They were something out of a nightmare. Their white coloring made them look like they were made out of bone. Hairy legs carried a segmented body a yard long. 8 blood red eyes were the only bit of color on them, and powerful jaws were supported by two huge mandibles that were almost another set of legs. Ice spiders, the size of dogs. And too many to count.

Luther recoiled and lashed out on pure reflex at the first flash of white. The blow was panicked and clumsy, but beasts were the size of mountain dogs and hard to miss. His long sword shore clean through the spiders massive head and mandibles. Its body convulsed. An arm flailed out, striking him across the jaw. Luther's mind exploded in a white hot star burst. He hadn't been hit this hard since a misunderstanding between him and a huge Lannister sailor years ago. The next thing he knew he was sprawled out on the ground, with the monster curled up dead next to him still writhing. Sedgewick was already at his side. He shouted something down at him, but the struggle of battle around them was deafening. The spiders screeched like demons as they charged. Men screamed and cried out. A chorus of cracking bones and carapaces played along it all. Sedgwick pulled Luther to a crouch, keeping a vice grip on the lordling's coat.

"We have to get you to the horses!" He was screaming right into Luther's ear. Even then it was difficult to make out through the pain and noise. Luther wasn't given a chance to respond before he was dragged to his feet by the smaller man.

Before they could take a step, another of the snow demons were on them. Sedgwick dropped Luther in time to get a shield between them and it's grasping mandibles. Luther hacked at the thing's legs as they grasped around Sedgewick's shield.

Beyond their dying foe, Luther could see his men being torn to pieces. One landed on Brook's back and sank two long fangs into his throat. The hunter threw the beast to the ground and planted a spear in it, then immediately started convulsing. He fell to the ground and before Luther's eyes, a bloody tumor swelled where he was bitten. In seconds, his face had turned as dark purple as wine and blood oozed out of his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. His head was deep purple and blood had flown out of his eyes, mouth, and nose. Joff Miller was crawling desperately away, his legs dragging lifelessly behind him. He was pounced by two more spiders, who immediately set to work finishing the job. Their mandibles were like daggers and they tore at man like starving curs. To a man the spiders tore them all to bloody ribbons.

His own squire bravely stabbed at three that surround him. The spiders were not mindless it seemed, as they darted wearly around the boy's erratic swipes. It ended almost immediately as another landed on young Edd's back. He was buried in their pale, hairy bodies.

Something crashed into his side as he ran with Sedgwick for the horses. As he landed, a lance of pain split him in two where he was struck. The thing still had it's dripping mandibles buried in his side even as Luther buried his dagger between the creature's eight eyes. Sedgwick kicked it away and pulled him on, but Luther collapsed after a step. His legs had stopped working. He never thought there could be pain like this. It was as if every part of him was ablaze. Sedgwick gave up trying to pull him. He could see his sworn shield take up a position above him. He squared his stance and leveled his longsword, awaiting the onslaught.

The battle noise seemed to melt and fade. A darkness was swallowing his vision. He saw Sedgwick split an eight-legged demon in two, then spear another through its thorax as it reared. Luther felt his numbed wound. His sealskin gloves came back blood red and ichor green.

Luther's head fell back on the snow. He had fallen at the foot of the weirwood near their camp. Her face seemed to be looking down at him now. He knew somewhere deep down he was delirious, but all the same the face of the weirwood smiled at him.

"Spiders are more afraid of you than you are of them, " The tree's face cooed gently down at him in his in Shari's voice.


	3. Victaria

Victaria

Victaria of House Mallister, formerly of House Blaze, rode next to her husband along the river road along the Red Fork. The morning was cold and didn't seem to warm even as the sun climbed in the sky. 'The Starks are always right in the end,' she thought as she pulled her cloak tight. It was a purple cloak of her husband's house, but clipped to her riding dress with silver fastenings in the shape of House Blaze's roaring fire sigil. The host had left camp just before dawn in order to make it to their destination before midday.

"Have you ever been to Riverrun?" She asked her husband as their palfreys trotted alongside each other. Gordon Mallister loomed over her, even when riding. Her eyes came up to just the top of his bright purple doublet. It had the silver eagle of Mallister sewn above the heart. A long purple cloak, like her own, hung behind him with the large silver eagle embroidered upon it. He pulled it's collar tight as a gust of autumn wind whipped by.

"I rode in a tourney here years ago. I was in the final eight riders before Red Scales unhorsed me." Gordon said, smiling slightly. Victaria returned it. Arthur Mooten the Red Scale was one of the greatest knights in the Riverlands, the singers agreed. She was thankful he had survived the encounter. Red Scales had killed a squire just last year at a tournament in Maidenpool. An accident to be sure, but the man was said to be able to pierce a moth on the fly with his lance. A misplace point seemed unlikely.

"Tell me about it, my lord. I hear it's a castle in the river itself." Victaria prodded.

"It is and it isn't," Mallister began, before a rider from down the column rode up to him with a message from his Father. Bernard Mallister was not a man to be left waiting, so the pair kicked their mounts into a gallop. Victaria cringed from the pain in her buttocks, wishing she rode more. Her saddle sores were growing saddle sores. Just last night Gordon tormented her so playfully about it in their private pavilion.

They found Lord Bernard Mallister, the Old Eagle of Seagard, on a small hill ahead of the main group. His son and heir, Julian Mallister, the Young Eagle, and groom to be was with him there, looking resplendent in his wedding garb. The two seemed more uncle and nephew than father and son. Bernard was a tall with cords of lean muscle under his purple and silver breastplate and doublet. A short grey-brown beard covered a smooth face. Gordon had his look as well, but with his mother's upturned nose.

It was said Julian had his grandfather's look. The Young Eagle was as wide as he was short. Burly, hairy, and brusque, Julian was a boulder of a man. Where his brother Gordon jousted, The Young Eagle excelled in the melees.

Ser Marlon the Butcher, Ser Kyle Rivers, Ser Loren Mallister, Maester Enry, and half a dozen squires sat a horse several paces away from Bernard and Julian, talking amongst themselves.

"They say the Tully maid is one of the fairest in the Kingdoms." Kyle Rivers was saying to the large Ser Marlon. "She plays the harp and sings along with it herself!"

Bernard eyed Victaria as the two of them approached, then turned back to the southern horizon.

"Can any of tell me what's missing from this vista?" Bernard Mallister used his lord's voice on the group. They all quieted and studied the great castle that laid before them.

From the hill, Victaria laid eyes on Riverrun ahead of the Mallister column. The castle was the strangest Victaria had ever seen. Castle Hearthfire was a motte and baily common around the north, built by Blaize the Starmaul thousands of years age. Seaguard sat on a cliff and held a commanding view of the coastline. This castle, to her astonishment, was a triangular oddity rising from the spear tip of land between the Red fork and the Tumblestone.

In front of Riverrun was a sea of flags and banners. It looked as if the whole of the Riverlands had come to see the wedding of Julian Mallister and Lady Ashara Tully. Victaria could pick out the grey catfish of House Fisher and the twin keeps of House Frey, the white tree of Blackwood and the blue waterfall of Bigglestone. All were surrounded by the smaller banners of lesser houses and knights. Pavilions, tents, and horselines sprawled out from Riverrun on its main gate between the two guardian rivers, with the branding of families large and small across all of them.

"Where is the royal standard?" Victaria asked quietly, not expecting it to be the answer to the riddle posed. The Lord of Seagard looked at her, surprise in his seafoam eyes. Recognition swept across the small group and several began to speak at once. Bernard Mallister talked right over them and they silenced.

"Our little flame is correct. We will not be expecting a retinue from Torrencehold, save for the Prince of Rivers and Hills, Young Prince Monroe, and a small group of bodyguards." Gordon and Loren spat on the ground in unison. When Victaria was shipped to Seagard, Gordon described the Teagues like a bad wound in the heart of the Riverlands.

"Since they were crowned, the Teagues have grown and festered. They spread the Faith to those who want no part of of their septs and songs," Victaria remembered Gordon's vitriole. "The smallfolk cut down the weirwoods their grandfather's prayed to and banish any in their communities that speak against it. The Teagues actively encourage such brigands." Gordon and Victaria were laying together in bed, talking well past the hour of the wolf as they often did.

"Why do the Riverlords pay homage to them, if they are so cruel?" Victaria had asked.

"Between the taxes, the hostages, and few Riverlords in the south that support their claims, there is little we can do. Father would have skewered King Torrence half a hundred times if he didn't hold Margy and Ian."

Victaria remembered their long nights together after their wedding, loving and learning about one another. Her own lady mother had found a cold bed when she came to Hearthfire to be wedded to Jeor. Victaria refused to let Gordon live with her as stranger or worse. She was a lucky one, she reflected, looking at her husband. He loved her when she arrived in her red and green maiden cloak. He loved her when they were carried to their bedding. He loved her when they lost their first child. He loved her still when Maester Enry told her she wouldn't have another.

"What's to stop us from taking the boy ourselves?" Ser Loren Mallister, an aged knight and younger cousin to Lord Bernard, wondered allowed.

"That seems rather foolish of our good King to send his heir amongst his unwilling subjects." Ser Marlon the Butcher spoke bluntly. The other knights and squires nodded with him. The knight and Master-at-Arms of Seagard bore a butcher's cleaver on his shield, in honor of his grandfather. Victaria didn't think the rather menacing name hurt his reputation either.

Lord Mallister's expression was grave. He looked each and every one of them in the eyes, then turned and rode down the hill to join the column, leaving the rest to each other and their thoughts. No other words were exchanged.

* * *

The shouts and revels of a people in celebration greeted the Mallister host as they came in amongst the tents and pavilions. Gordon had already peeled away to go find some Frey friends of his. Victaria would have chased after him, but Lady Grega Mallister interposed herself.

"Good Daughter." The old matriarch was near 60, but for the streaks of grey in her long brown Mallister hair and raven's feet that touched her eyes, she looked a woman half her age. She was beautiful as well, with high cheekbones, even set eyes the color of grass, and a small, slightly upturned nose. Lady Grega was kind and open handed with all her children, which always made Victaria wonder why her Good Mother didn't seem to like her very much. "I imagine you would be wrestling and drinking with the men were it up to you. Perhaps getting your gown torn and muddy would be preferable to Lady Tully's luncheon?"

"I couldn't leave you alone with all the others, My Lady," said Victaria. Annoyance or something like it was plain on Grega's face.

"The Tullys are a proud house. And rightly so. They say this castle has never been taken by storm." Grega pointed to the huge grey doors built on either side of the swampy moat. "Opening those sluice gates turns the whole castle into an island by letting the Tumblestone fill the moat. Seagard might be bigger, but she is as vulnerable to ladder and siege towers as any. Did you know that, dear?"

"I didn't, my Lady."

"I imagine you wouldn't. Do you even have books in the north? I would think huddling around the fire day in and day out would become dreadfully dull."

"We do have books," Victaria couldn't understand what Grega wanted with her. At Seagard, she questioned her endlessly about her diet and activities after she lost their first child. Gordon loved her even then and they moved on with their lives, but Grega had not.

"What can a woman do if she cannot be a mother?" The Lady of Seagard had asked. "I know it's a boon in a brothel, but you are a Lady of House Mallister now. With all the children Gordon could have sired, it now seems we now have that many fewer to continue our line." Victaria could think of a lot of things a woman could be besides a mother or a whore, but she had kept it to herself.

"Have you been here before, my lady?" Victaria asked, desperate as ever to remain calm and friendly to the woman who spat so much venom at her.

"Many times. Edric Tully was already the Old Fish even when Bernard and I were children. Our Grandfather would bring us with him when he toured the Riverlands or met with other Riverlords. It was he who suggested to our Grandfather in the first place that Bernard and I be wed. It's uncommon, cousins marrying, but after the river sickness that spring, suitable matches were hard enough to come by."

They crossed over the moat and under the portcullis of Riverrun. Within, the yard was teaming with servants carrying, building, setting up, and delivering. A dozen were arranging tables and benches those participating in the wedding feast that wouldn't fit in Riverrun's modest great hall. Grooms led their horses away and the two women of Mallister were lead to their chambers.

* * *

"This is treason!" Boomed Lord Domerik Bigglestone, slamming his flagon to the table. All of the great lords in the eastern Riverlands were in attendance, as far as Victaria could tell. Old and hunched Edric Tully sat in his solar in the seat closest to the fire. His bald head and withered hands were covered in age spots, but his eyes were keen and active. They focused on every speaker intently. The Old Fish's son and heir, Edmure, sat to his right. For man of five and sixty, he was still robust as they said his father had been and even some streaks of auburn remaining in his short hair.

In addition to the Tully hosts, Bernard Mallister and the newly married Julian sat at the benched table in the center of the solar. Around them was Lord Bigglestone, huge and boisterous and Lord Stevron Chambers, fat and sweating in the modest heat of the room. Also in attendance around the solar was the handsome and young Lord Kyle Fisher, Lord, Lord Walder Frey, serious and in his armor as ever, and the 8 year old Brandon Blackwood with his mother and regent, Lady Betha Blackwood.

"Me," Victaria thought. "And 25,000 swords, at least." She sat in the corner, listening intently to the hotly debated discorse. Gordon and many other scions from the assembled houses were busy entertaining Prince Monroe with a faux archery tournament in the ward, keeping him well away from the Riverlords who plotted his and his father's death. Her husband requested that she be in attendance to be his eyes and ears and Bernard allowed it, albite with some tisking from his lady wife.

"Do you mean to say that you are declaring war on the Teagues for all of us? Without our consent?" Lord Biggleston stood and paced to the hearth, blustering and frustrated.

"We do this together or not at all." Edric Tully quiet voice responded. He always spoke quietly, forcing those around him to strain to hear. "And you are the last vote we need."

Domerik looked to the other assembled lords, bewildered by the straight and serious looks they returned. Well, most of them returned. Lord Fisher's smirk was painted on his full lips. Lord Blackwood fidgeted with a wooden knight, not paying attention.

"This little conspiracy of yours seems a lot older than I thought. Why was I left out?" Domerik was still seething, but his effort to restrain his tone was apparent.

"Bigglestone lays near the Teagues lands. I wouldn't risk the raven or rider and the fewer people who know, the safer we are." Edmure Tully put in, his arms crossed. Domerik, easily the tallest person present, looked down over all of them, helpless. He sighed and returned to his seat.

"I will hear of this plan. No one hates the Teagues more than I, but I'm not ready to entertain the notion of breaking guest right or inviting destruction on to my lands." Domerik said, grabbing his flagon back up and punctuating himself with a drink.

"If all goes well, that shouldn't happen." Edmure stood and retrieved a map. He laid it out at the center table and the lords gathered around. The Riverlands laid across the parchment, expertly wrote with all the pertinent details of lands and Houses. "We will not violate sacred guest right. The boy is free to all the meat and mead he wishes. When he leaves on the day after next, we will present him with a fine suit of armor as a guest gift and he will return home."

"Some plan," Quipped Kyle Fisher. "Why not send him along the rest of our kin. I feel insufficiently cowed to the tridents."

"Less than a league away," Edmure continued, ignoring the young lord "We have 500 Blackwood men waiting near the road to Torrencehold. They will scatter his retinue and return him in chains to Riverrun."

"I still think the prince would be better off in the dungeons of the Twins. We are as safe as Riverrun, and more distant from the Teague's cretins." Walder Frey's voice was low and menacing, like the distant rumble of a storm.

"We need him in a dungeon that day, not on the road for a week with Torrence rattling their purse for the boy's return." Lord Edric said quietly from where he sat by the fire. "And you're not as safe as Riverrun, meaning no disrespect to you and your strong keeps, my Lord of Frey." Walder Frey's face was a mask of serious determination. He said no more on the subject.

"What about the hostages?" Victaria asked. The Lords all turned to her. 25,000 Swords worth of eyes trained directly on her. She was ready for a scolding, but Bernard Mallister preempted any.

"I was assured that no harm would come to my Ian and Margy. I can't imagine King Torrence responding well to his son and heir being taken. And if something were to happen to Prince Monroe, Torrence has two sons even still." A murmur of agreement bubbled with the other lords.

"We have not chosen this hour at random, my lords." Edric whispered. "Loyal Riverlanders have been placed in key positions in Torrencehold. The hostages should be coming home as we speak."

Red outrage took the room. Lord Frey began to round on the elderly man, held back by Edmure and Stevron Chambers. Her good father and brother stood at once, shouting at once at their hosts. Kyle Fisher's smirk had vanished. Julian took his seat again, fuming, but Bernard wasn't done.

"You take it upon yourself to put my blood at risk, old man?" Bernard seethed. Lord Frey wrestled away from the two men and paced away, black with rage.

"Our generous Lord of Tully seems to think that he can play these games behind our back. What gives you the right-" Walder Frey began through clenched teeth.

"They are safe. I promise every one of you. If anything were to happen to them, I would leap into the river myself," Edric started, still quiet, still calm. "We will have the hostage and deny the hated Teagues theirs. It will come to war, but on our terms."


	4. Osric

Osric

700 feet below his own, Osric Stark could see funeral pyres burn bright in the sea of black. Three of them, for the three rangers that Jenesee Hill had dragged back to the Wall. Osric had looked upon their bodies were the ranger had collapsed in the middle of the Castle Black courtyard. Two were mauled beyond recognition, and he had almost wretched at the sight of them, but choked back his breakfast. It would not be good for the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch to be seen as weak, even if he was only three and ten.

The third body, the recognizable one, was his own First Ranger, Mark Mallister. Ser Mark, who had been like a shadow to him during his first year on the Wall. Everything Osric knew about the Night's Watch was from this man's lips. And now those lips were black and grey and lifeless.

Later, after the maesters were able to attend to Jenesse, Karl and Osric were there to question him.

"What happened to you out there?" Osric's first steward, Karl Locke, asked Jenesee Hill. The young ranger was wounded and exhausted from the ordeal. A bad infection had set in his haunch. He was a huge man in life. While he laid dying, he looked a pained old man.

"We were patrolling around Dustin's Cairn," His breathing was labored, his skin as white as snow. Osric stood behind his Lord Steward in a way he wouldn't have to see the blackened bandages on Hill's side. "We were just starting to put up camp for the night when something grabbed the First Ranger's horse and dragged it behind the trees. Then they started leaping at us."

"Who did this to you, brother? We need to know who we are dealing with." Karl Locke was a kindly man of 40 years. He reminded Osric of a owl. He was wide eyed and was always sharp of wit and sense. He also was Osric's protector since the boy was sent to the Wall by his father, The King in the North. Karl leaned down next to the dying man and put a hand on his head. "You're testimony could save many of your brother's lives. Your Lord Commander's life."

Jenesee looked to Osric then. His eyes were pale blue, paler than when Osric had first met the man. Osric stood straighter under his man's gaze.

"I think they were Snarks, m'lord." Jenesee whispered, looking away. "I know that sounds crazy, but it was just like in the stories. They were as tall as a knight a horse. They moved like men, but were covered in fur like a bear. We killed a few and they ran off. Not before they done for Bert and Small Sam. The First Ranger died on the way back." The ranger coughed, then cried out in pain.

"You're sure, son? Snarks?" Karl asked quietly. Jenesee noded slowly, looking ashamed.

"We will send a maester at once. Thank you." It was all Osric could think to say to the man.

Now the Lord Commander stood upon his wall, watching the three funeral pyres crumble into bonfires. He was alone, but for Karl.

His First Steward broke the silence."We will need to choose a new First Ranger, my lord."

"Bollivar Flowers." Osric spoke at once. He had seen the man fight before, a long time ago. Karl considered it for a moment.

"A prudent choice, my lord. But he may wish to stay on as commander of Eastwatch." Karl said.

"Send Ser Bollivar a bird. We are only asking if he's interested." Osric had known that Bollivar would be the replacement should he lose Mark or even Karl. Eastwatch had been a hotbed of corruption when Osric arrived. One of his first acts was sending the bastard from the Reach with a good chunk of the Stark reinforcements that came with Osric to the wall. A month later, the pirates had been driven off and the brothers who had been lining their pockets with supplies and gold were hanged. Eastwatch-by-the-Sea was now the quietest castle on the Wall.

Osric didn't hear Maester Bertrum approach them. Karl turned with a start, his hand on the hilt of his longsword.

"Gods, Mop, you need to announce yourself." Karl grumbled, turning back to the pyres were they laid bellow, beyond the Wall.

"Apologies my lords. Lord Osric, I'm sorry to say that Ranger Jenesse has succumbed to his wounds." The small brown man spoke quietly. He had the coppery skin and the small black eyes of a dornish man. His hair was a large, brown bush with a streak of grey down the middle.

'His hair did look a bit like a mop,' Osric thought.

"Have you looked into his claims, these snarks?" Karl spoke. Osric could hear his uncertainty. Snarks were supposed villains in tales for babies. They picked bad little boys and girls from their beds and wizards used their beards in potion. They weren't real, his mother had always told him. They were gone like the Others and the minotaurs and the centaurs and the grumpkins.

"I have found several old passages. They describe them as devices in fairy tales and children's stories, not as flesh and blood beasts." Maester Mop's voice was as smooth and confident as a river. "Except in one account. A scrap of paper written on over two thousand years ago. I found only a partial description."

"What did it say?" Osric said, suppressing the excitement in his voice.

"It describes the seven-foot tall shaggy beasts Jenesse may have seen. They are bestial and violent and appear to travel in packs like wolves. That is all it found. The book it goes to is long gone."

Osric considered it while Karl gave the orders to have Jenesse's funeral pyre prepared. Mop gave his courtesies and returned to the switchback stair.

"Snarks, my lord. We're living in one of your Grandmother's stories." Osric knew Karl was trying to cheer him up. He was always trying to cheer him up. It was hard when Osric first came to the wall. At Winterfell, he had his friends and siblings to play with. At the Wall, Karl was his only friend. The men of the night's watch held a begrudging respect. He heard their snickers and their jokes.

"He came to the wall in all black swaddling clothes."

"They still serve him breast milk at all the meals."

"He was sent here for stealing his sister's toy."

And what would they say now if their boy lord comes crying to them, scarred of the snarks and grumpkins. He could hear their mockery already on the cold wind.

"What are they men going to say, Karl? Will they believe Jenesse?" Osric asked. The funeral pyres were burning out, the harsh snow of the north drowning their last embers.

"Do you believe him, my lord?"

"Yes."

"Then they will have to believe you. It's their duty. You're thoughts and actions are theirs. The question is what are you going to do about it?" Karl turned to face his Lord Commander. Karl still had a good foot and so on the boy, despite all his growth over the past three years. Osric looked to his mentor, advisor, friend, and sworn shield.

"I think dinner first." Osric said, smiling slightly. Karl hooted and slapped the boy gently on the shoulder. Together they headed down the switchback stair and through Castle Black to the common hall. The men had just gotten back from the pyres and had were in the middle of the meal. Osric marched through to the front dais, keeping his gaze straight ahead. He heard no snickering, no jokes.

'At least they are respectful this night.' Osric thought as he took his place. Mutton was brought to him, steeped in a gravy and served with onions and carrots. He found he had no appetite. A vision of the brutalized rangers came back to him. His rangers.

* * *

In the Commander's keep that night, Osric sat next to the burning hearth in his solar, a cup of watered wine in hand. Karl, Mop, and Urich Wallraiser, his first builder, were discussing the renovation plans of a tower at one of the castles. Snowgate, maybe. Osric's attention bounced between the fire, his wine cup, and his toy knights that stood in ordered rows on the map table in the corner of the room. He had hoped for some time alone with his game of brave leaden knights, but he must be a Lord this night, not a boy.

A knock on his door heralded the arrival Flinteye and Marion Snow, Mark Mallister's lieutenants. Flinteye had one bright blue eye and one pale eye under shaggy brown curls. The blind one always made Osric uncomfortable to look at it, but Flinteye was otherwise young and handsome. Marion Snow was some bastard of a Bolton and had the dirty grey eyes and long stringy black hair of his father's house.

"Now that we are here," Karl started, before being cut off by Marion.

"This isn't about that bloody mess Jenesse dragged in is it? Are we planning a ranging out to look for fairies and-" In a flash of black, Karl struck Marion hard across the jaw, sending the younger ranger sprawling to the ground.

"I was talking, bastard." Karl said cooly, shaking out his hand. An angry Marion pulled himself to his knees, murder in his cold grey eyes. When he saw that not a single one of the assembled were coming to his aid and he moved meekly to a chair. "Now that we are here, the Lord Commander had something he would like to say."

All the eyes in the room turned to where he sat. Osric became singularly aware of how comfortable his chair was. It was made in Essos over the Narrow Sea. Its cushions were made of some queer, silky fabric and its cushions were stuffed with feathers. It was certainly more comfortable to stay here than get in front of these men. Osric stood, eyes fixed on Karl. Karl didn't move. He only stared back at him, smiling.

"I want this threat of snarks taken seriously." Osric thought he sounded very lordly to himself, but the two rangers immediately cracked. The bastard on his chair audibly suppressed a laugh, and Flinteyes was grinning like a fool. Osric wouldn't be moved. He was the Lord Commander. His father might have bought him the post with swords and supplies, but it couldn't have happened if the men of the night's watch didn't vote him in themselves. 'At a rate of seven in ten,' Osric didn't forget. New swords and a winter's worth of supplies wasn't enough for every black brother, but it was enough for most of them.

"What will you have us do, my lord?" Karl spoke with absolute certainty to Osric, as if the boy was his own father, King Harlon Stark.


	5. Victaria II

Victaria

Victaria was back in her room at Hearthfire. She had been born just down the hall and spent all of her first sixteen years here. It was familiar as a parent's face or a well worn path. Her large bed and canopy could fit a horse and its rider and she had it all to herself. A crate at the foot of her bed sat secure, with only a small piece of fabric surreptitiously sticking out of a corner betraying its contents. The window that normally had a lovely view of the eastern marches outside of the castle was as black as night. Blacker even, as Victaria couldn't see the stars or the lights of the village below.

And it was cold. A chill clung to her from the icy heart of winter itself. Fine frost coated every surface she could see. The rushes on the ground snapped under her numb bare feet as she circled around looking for any sign of life or light or warmth.

There was a rumble coming from her chest. The chest at the end of the bed that held her small clothes and precious possessions. It was packed tight as if for a long journey. It made a slight shift, like a living thing were trying to escape it. Victaria watched it for another dozen heartbeats before finally releasing the breath she didn't realize she had been holding.

It jumped again.

Victaria realized she had fallen on her back foot, startled. 'It's just my chest,' she thought after a moment, and then made a cautious step towards it. She crouched low, eyeing its worn wooden surface, its rusted iron fastenings. Had it always been this rusty? Her slender fingers seemed as white as month old lambs. They gripped the ice cold iron of the latch. It burned her flesh as if made of fire, but she turned it open all the same. The lid lifted with a groan of ungreased metal, and Victaria was met with 8 eyes as red as hell. She fell back, as red and orange flame billowed out from behind those red eyes, and filled her body.

Panting and gasping, Victaria woke.

She was in her pavilion she shared with Gordon, though his familiar warmth had been replaced by the narrower frame of her handmaid. Breda was her name. A loyal girl of fourteen gifted to her as a Nameday gift from her husband.

Victaria sat up, blinking her eyes over and over at the wall of her tent, trying to make the canvas and shadows beyond come into a greater focus. Her head pounded from the previous night's festivities. Their caravan had left Riverrun only a few nights ago to return to Seaguard with the women, children, and a small cadre of household guards to see them on.

It was war in the Riverlands. The frightful storm cloud had settled over all of them like a hurricane off of the Sunset Sea. Riverlanders, lead by the Tullys and the Mallisters, fought Riverlanders, lead by King Torrence Teague. It seemed so wrong to Victaria. She was of the North, and in the North, there was but one King and his name was Stark. Here…

Victaria grasped for the water pitcher near her bed, hoping to drown the pounding headache that cracked her skull. She had been returning to the camp last night after seeing to her evening prayers when she saw the start of a drinking contest between the groom and the captain of guards. While they expected the young Lady to say her pleasantries and go to bed, they did not foresee their lord's wife drinking them both under the table. Beyond that she didn't remember much of the contest, other than she had won it. Ale was the guilty pleasure to end them all and she rarely had opportunities such as these to put her own humble talents to the test with hard drinking, hard fighting men. Though the men would have been surprised at the different sorts of drinking games ladies-in-waiting could play.

She had other flashes of memory. The captain, Switz or something, trying to give her all of his pocket money as a prize. Lady Grega fuming when she discovered the contest and Victaria laughing like a salty sailor right into her teeth. Breda acting as crutch in their farce and helping the stumbling victor to her bed. A dream about a cold room. Eight red eyes.

The water was cool from the night air and filled her empty stomach like a blue fire. Victaria stood and padded toward the tent flap, hoping it to be less stifling outside of her smoky pavilion. She pulled her nightshirt tighter around her.

A rapid pounding from somewhere in the camp made her freeze. A clank and a clamor cut short as soon as it began.

'Swordplay?' Victaria thought, 'It had to be,' before a very human and a very desperate grunt cut through the empty din. What light from the camp's central fire casted on the side of her pavilion was suddenly interrupted by several running forms. The night still reigned and it couldn't have been much past the hour of the wolf.

Victaria didn't wait for whatever ill had come to their camp to find her defenseless. Not kin to Jeor Blaze. She dove to the travel chest she kept by her bed and fished out the short sword she wasn't supposed to have but had in any case. As she reached for the latch, she paused, as a large wolf spider crawled across the top of it and out of sight. She eyed it, thinking about eight red eyes.

The blade was a plain but well made piece of steel her eldest brother, Ronnel, had given her as a parting gift when she left the North for the Riverlands. Ever since the Ironborn increased their looting along the western edge of the Westeros, Jeor saw that everyone in his household, men and women alike, knew the rudiments of swordplay.

"Those Southron ladies don't have to worry about Ironborn and Wildlings. We know, better, right sis? A raider isn't going to want to carry home a new salt wife when she has cut open his guts." Ronnel had said, pushing the sword in its sheath into her hands. Victaria had looked to her Father like a bad habit, so strong and confident they were. Now, a small blade and a dozen hours of practice was all that stood between her, and the assassin who burst into her tent.

"For Seaguard!" Victaria bellowed, not quite believing herself. Someone had to wake the camp. "Rise! Men of Seaguard! Defend your people!" She bellowed again, before the assailant moved on her with a knife in either hand. The man clearly was not expecting armed resistance, and the taller Victaria was able to drive her sword into his unprotected neck. The knives slipped from his fingers as he pitched to the ground, wrenching her sword from her hands.

By now, the entire camp was in an uproar, with men and women screaming and crying. The light outside grew brighter, as it seemed one of the other tents caught fire. Breda was wide awake and sitting up in bed, staring at her Lady with saucer sized eyes.

"My Lady! You're hurt." The girl blubbered. Victaria looked down at herself. She was unmarked, but a spray of blood from the dying man had caught her full in the face and chest. She didn't have another moment to muse on the blood for a second man entered the tent. Victaria scooped up one of the knives and held it ready, until she saw Captain Switz limp into view. She couldn't get a word out before he collapsed to the ground. Her and Breda rushed to his side.

"Captain. Who is attacking us?" Victaria asked quickly.

"Teagues. They found us. I woke as they swarmed the guard's tent. I was the only one who made it out. I saw Darry's ploughmen and the red horse of Bracken. We have been betrayed my Lady." Victaria gently shifted the fallen man to Breda's lap, eliciting a short moan from the guard captain.

"No, my Lady." Switz said as she stood and paced to the tent flap. "This camp is lost, they are too many. You must surrender." To Victaria's horror, she saw he was right. Rampaging men at arms were cutting down the men and women of the Mallister's party. Burning their tents. Capturing their horses.

"My Lady mother?" Victaria asked, while trying to think of who else in the family had rode north. A few of Gordon's cousins worked for the Mallister court, but most of the family stayed in Riverrun as support for the growing war effort.

"She was cut down." Captain Switz let out before being consumed by a choking cough. He pushed Breda away and pulled himself to a crouch. Victaria could now see weeping red wound near his heart. "Her pavilion was the first attacked. There is no hope. If you parlay yourself, they will only take you as hostage."

Hostage? Not by the Teagues. Not a Lady of House Blaze and House…

"Switz? How did you know my Lady Mother was the first one attacked?" Victaria asked her voice flat and scholarly. She let the tent flap drop and tightened her grip on the knife. Cold rage like she had never felt before gripped her heart in an icy fist. The Captain stumbled over a mumbling sentence. "How did they get past the pickets? I saw them last night as I prayed. Why would they keep me alive when they killed the Lady of House Mallister? Snake." She slapped the traitor across the face before he could form a respone. She could already see his faux wound no longer troubled him as he recoiled. She pushed Breda towards the back of the tent and rushed to follow her when the Captain's iron grip grasped her wrist.

"You're not leaving here. You must surrender. It's what's good for you." Said the Captain, now leering at her in contempt. Without waiting, Victaria spun and slashed at Switz with her knife. He let out a pained yell, hands wiping at his eyes.

"You raging cunt!" The captain bellowed. "I can't see!" Blood rained down from his brow and over his eyes. Victaria followed up her cut with a swift kick to the side of his knee where no armor lay. He buckled and fell, grasping at his eyes and his knee. Victaria passed Breda the knife and ordered her to cut a path in their tent. She wrenched her short sword out of the first attackers corpse, grabbed her travel bag, and the two rushed off into the night as quickly and quietly as possible, trying to ignore the screams and pleas of friends and family.

* * *

Not an hour after their initial escape did the raiders make good on a pursuit of Victaria. Horsemen raced through the thick Riverland forest with torches and dogs, unwilling to leave them even an hour of respite. The two women hid in ancient thickets and hedges, under heavy roots, and in waist deep water trying to throw their hunters off the trail. As the night grew older, as hunters and barking dogs sounded farther, they had found a heavy hedge under which they crouched.

The moon was at it's fullest, and in its light, they overlooked an empty clearing. On its far side, Victaria studied a dim and flickering light just past a thicket of trees.

"What are you looking for, my Lady?" Breda asked quietly. The poor thing was still in her nightgown, as was she. They were both cold, wet, and running on bloody feet. But if Victaria's hunch was right, salvation lay just ahead.

"By my guess, I would say it's Fairmarket." Victaria whispered, her words slurring slightly in her exhaustion.

"Fairmarket?" Breda asked. "Have we truly come so far?"

"That light looks to be a torch," Victaria continued. "The way the light is casted, I would guess it's for the north gate."

"We can't cross that field. The riders are everywhere. Someone will see us before we've made it-"

"Then stay here, girl." Victaria hissed, her head shooting around to meet the handmaid's gaze. "Stay here until the dogs find you. I mean to live and I will not wait like some rabbit at shivering in its warren as the fox crawls in." She held the young woman's gaze until the handmaid looked away. "We will wait a few more moments for any sign of change, and then-"

A stick right behind them snapped, sounding like some crack of thunder in the otherwise quiet night. Victaria was already spinning with sword in hand, ready to meet the foe. It was too late and too little, as a mailed glove cracked Victaria hard across the back of her head. Victaria fell, the sounds of a scream filling her head, not knowing if it was Breda or herself. Before her heart had another chance to beat, a crushing hammer blow fell on her sword hand, sending a gout of pain through her arm before her grip it went unnervingly numb.

Victaria was then pushed roughly on her back, letting her look upon her attackers. They would have been a sorry lot had she rode by them on her horse, but now, they were everything. Three hideous men leering down at her. The one on the far left had Breda's long black hair in an iron grip. He had patchy, wiry brown hair and a face that looked like it was made of oatmeal. The other two looked like brothers, fathered by the same rat. All held dirks at the ready. All wore mismatched pieces of armor and boiled leather. Over their hearts was sown a crude rendition of the trident of the House Teague.

"And this would be the Lady of Mallister," Sneered the shorter of the two brothers. "Lord Teague's going to be giddy when we bring him your head." Victaria tried to stand, but a swift boot from the taller brother pushed her back into the dirt. She coughed out dirt, her own dark brown hair, and what might have been blood. "Don't be rude," The short brother said to the tall. "The Lady is a prisoner of war and will be accorded a quick death worthy of her station." He finished, drawing out the statement with veins of venom. The tall chuckled and leaned down, reaching for her throat.

An arrow with scarlet fletchings sprouted from the tall's throat, transfixing his neck entirely. Victaria had a moment to register his wide eyed reaction before the man started to topple over. She rolled quickly to the side before his bulk crashed to the ground. The brigands were already shouting and wheeling to find their attackers, Victaria and Breda forgotten.

Victaria came to a stop on her belly watched the battle unfold. The remaining two men had not a hope as forms melted in from the night, angry steel glinting in their hands. In the space of four heart beats, the attackers had left two corpses on the dirt.

Shade from the trees had hidden their faces, but now as they approached, Victaria could make out their features. Five there were. Ghosts in red. Red as blood.

There was the one in the center. She fixated upon the lean, hard looking man. He had the burnt brown hair. The ash grey eyes. Victaria twisted her expression in disbelief, pulling herself up to her aching feet. But he couldn't be who he appeared to be. This man wore a long red cloak over burgundy leather, not the livery of House Blaze. His hair was a tangled mess and he had a beard to match. He held a red spear like a standard planted squarely at the center of an army, it's blade wrought in red steel and in the shape of a grasping as if it was flame itself, licking up to the sky.

"Who are you?" Victaria finally said, ungallant as it was for meeting her rescuers, sounding melancholy to her own ears, as if she were speaking to the dead.

Hadrian's hard, angry eyes softened upon hearing her voice. His cracked lips moved into the shadow of a smile. He pushed back a greasy fall of long hair to show her his grass green eyes. Her little brother's grass green eyes.

"I've been long away, sister. And there is much to do."


End file.
